Upson-Pike County GaArchives News.....Early Recollections Of Upson County November 6, 1925
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Lynn B. Cunningham http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00011.html#0002535 July 9, 2007, 10:36 pm

The Pike County Journal November 6, 1925

The Pike County Journal
Friday, Nov. 6, 1925

Early Recollections Of Upson County

By Rev. R.W. Rogers

I have been requested to write some of my early recollections of Thomaston and 
Upson County.

I was born in Thomaston March 7, 1850. My grandfather, my mother and father, 
my sister, four brothers, and a nephew are buried there.

My grandfather, a saintly man, was one of the early settlers. He erected his 
tombstone several years before he died, with the following 
inscriptions, “Simon Rogers, Born March 4th, 1782. Born of the Spirit Aug., 
1821. Closed his Christian Warfare — .” The date of his death was never 
chiseled on the tomb until last year. He died October 25, 1861.

I was a schoolboy in Thomaston when Wilson’s raid passed through, leaving 
desolation behind them. They caught the train on the Upson County R.R., 4 
miles from town, set it on fire and it came into town in a blaze. The negroes 
yelled, “Judgement day is coming.” The old men and boys ran into the woods. I 
lay out 3 days and nights with nothing to eat and only branch water to drink. 
I lay between two logs and saw my fathers cotton factory go up in smoke.

Early in 1861 the first Confederate troops left Thomaston. My brother, Henry, 
was a member of the Upson Guards 5th Ga., Reg’t. And my brothers Augustus and 
Simeon were in the Macon Guards 2nd Ga. Bat. Simeon was killed in front of 
Petersburg, Va., June 22, 1864, age 19 years and 22 days.

I was licensed to preach in the Thomaston Methodist church in 1873, and joined 
the South Georgia Conference. Some of the saintliest people I have ever known 
were members of that church. Mrs. W.A. Cobb gave me four books which belonged 
to her first husband, Andrew Hamill, who was the first Methodist preacher sent 
to this section in 1852.

On a Sunday in December 1873, I preached my first sermon from John xiv: 27. 
That night they had a farewell service for me and the next morning I mounted 
my horse and rode 200 miles to my first appointment at Millen Mission, 
Savannah Dist., South Ga., Conference, followed by the love and prayers of the 
good people of Thomaston.

[Transcribed 7/9/2007 Lynn Cunningham]


Additional Comments:

Rev. Richard Wade Rogers was born 7 March 1850 and died 9 April 1928. He was 
married to Frances Esther Eubank on 15 November 1877 in Pike County, Georgia.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/upson/newspapers/earlyrec2313gnw.txt

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